🪳 🪳 🪳 Cockroach Café Late Summer 2024

Condolences to @PermanentTemporary and any one else who has lost someone recently.

I've had one of those "little griefs" this morning. My mother may have been a self centred and manipulative but I'd hate to see even an enemy as distressed as she was this morning by her failing memory and confusion.

Oh @PermanentTemporary i am so sorry for your loss- and for the family circs which you are in the midst of.
Sending 🌺🌺🌺🌺

Condolences @PermanentTemporary

A lot of us here have similar parent(s), and do understand. No one is blaming you for your ‘choices’. In simple terms the inputs (from parent) will not change. The only thing that can change is how you choose to respond. We are conditioned by these people to choose to accept their behaviour. You can choose to not accept it. Of course it’s easy to say and much harder to do, but do read about the FOG. I’ve gone NC with my own mother after trying and failing at less nuclear options. That’s my choice, not for everyone but works for me. Choice isn’t just about acceptance, it gives you strength to change your own life, you need to know that’s ok.

@PermanentTemporary I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m glad she passed peacefully, it’s all any of us can hope for.

@PermanentTemporary condolences - look after yourself.

My MIL died peacefully in her nursing home yesterday. Feeling very sad. There is a breach in our family that means I'm not going to go over there at the moment because FIL has other relatives there, which feels like a huge failure. But as long as they are with him that's OK.

@TakemedowntoPotatoCity that sums it up brilliantly: everyone looking at you to know what's going on and sort it all. I never wanted the responsibility (and I have too many other responsibilities already) but I have found the grit to make hard decisions and everyone has ended up looking at me. Someone on here also commented about the ‘little griefs along the way’ which captures how it feels to be on this journey.

I really hope you’re okay @user14541775 and I mentioned you because I felt such solidarity.
I’ve had the knowing ‘ah, so you’re the daughter who never visits or always has to rush off’ which is obviously what DF has said about me. But I know more of the carers and now nursing home staff by name than DF. He is not pleased to see me, just has a list of all the things I must do asap. Never asks about his grandchildren, is so self-centred. Contact is not very pleasant with a tyrant who thinks a power of attorney compels me to sacrifice my life, and my sanity, in his service.

It is okay to limit contact to what you can cope with (or go low or no contact). You don’t have to do what you think you should or what you think is expected. It is safe to talk about that here.

@user14541775 I know you have taken what @FiniteSagacity said as a negative but it really isn’t. Most of us on here have run ourselves ragged trying to do what we think is thr right thing, usually based on elderly parents expectations and there comes a point we have to step back. The fact you said you would ‘happily go to sleep and never wake up’ for me is the red flag that stays you need to take some time to look after your own needs. The FOG website has some incredibly useful information and tips such as medium chill referred to by @FiniteSagacity . Please have a look, the glossary and toolbox are a really good source to get some perspective. As someone else said you are not responsible for any else’s happiness but your own. It is a difficult decision to step away either physically or emotionally but sometimes it is the only sensible way. https://outofthefog.website

I'm sitting here reading all the stories about heating like, this is my life. DM first started obsessing about it last winter. Stopped knowing how the thermostat worked. Couldn't understand the difference between current room temperature and optimal temperature. Tried explaining it a million ways - nothing worked. Obsession with fiddling with the dials on the actual radiator rather than the thermostat. I couldn't understand how something so simple had just become impossible.
Since then she's got worse, and can be deeply spiteful too nowadays. Says she doesn't need carers but hardly remembers they have been coming in for the last two weeks already. I dread to think how it will progress, like all of you it's a new world to navigate, without instructions, and with everyone looking at you to know what's going on and sort it all. I can't believe some of our experiences are so similar it's frightening.

Honestly @user14541775 I mean well, I was absolutely run ragged by a tyrant when I was trying to please DF. Medium chill has helped me. I know I am have always been his least favourite child because I could see the truth of his struggles, and I dared to challenge. I’m still battling the system and finances are dire but I feel emotionally better.

"Choosing" how I respond - still my fault then. Thanks for the support

@PatchworkOwl it was a short flight away in the EU and - very different from the last few years - DF is in a nursing home now, which made a huge difference in my confidence booking and going (DH insisted). I did make sure I could take and receive calls but only to respond and redirect.

DF is still not happy with me and being a bit difficult in NH but knowing he is safe and fed was a game changer. Also, being able to say I can’t come was what I needed.

@user14541775 we are not responsible for other people’s happiness. I keep reminding myself of medium chill from the FOG website and trying to stop with people pleasing and expecting any appreciation - I realise choosing how I respond was a lot harder when I was giving so much just a few months ago. I am still an admin slave at the moment and so much to do but it is less emotional.

Yes, messing with the heating need to be added to the list of symptoms of cognitive decline/dementia. Mum still has a very basic control unit (installed in 1984, so she’s very familiar with it) that she started fiddling with to the point I have now taped it over to stop the fiddling. There’s no system thermostat and temperature control is via the individual radiator valves. And she also doesn’t grasp any more that they turn off the radiator when the room is at temperature and that’s why they’ve gone cold.

every time the boiler get serviced they ring me up to try and flog mum a new combi boiler but there’s no way she’d cope with the disruption let alone grasp the difference in how it works.

An actual safe wouldn't work for a thermostat, but you can get fridge safes - they would allow the thermostat to register the room temperature and shouldn't block its communication with the boiler. And you could then attach the safe to something to stop it being moved.

DParent moved to new posh care home. Still all my fault. Wouldn't speak to me when I phoned although I could hear them being nice as you like with the nurse then telling them I probably phoned because I was guilty and to tell me they were busy.

Parent has been shitty to me my whole life and I feel even shitter now. The amount of time and stress I spend on them for not one jot of acknowledgment from anyone. I'd happily go to sleep and never wake up.

DM has a hive thermostat too - the 'best' hiding place was outside during a cold spell a few weeks ago.

The thermostat could not get above 14 degrees (because it was outside overnight) needless to say the house was tropical inside.

I have to be honest though and say that it was her constant obsession with the heating not working (when it was) that I now see as the start of her rapid decline.

@BestIsWest I think buying a safe/lockable box to put it in is a genius idea!!

@Morenicecardigans DM was convinced her heating was broken because the radiators weren't hot - I gave up trying to explain that they weren't hot because the house was 28 degrees - and that was partly because she kept putting fan heaters on because the radiators were cold! She could not see that the fact that she was wearing a vest top meant she was warm enough either - the obsession was with the temperature of the actual radiators.

British Gas must make a fortune out of customers with dementia......

@FiniteSagacity
A holiday sounds so lovely right now! Where did you go?

The worry I have is something will happen that would ruin the holiday or have me rushing back. I should maybe try to set that worry aside and book a weekend away.

@Earlydarkdays sorry for your loss and wishing you strength for the next bit.

@Morenicecardigans fingers crossed for you with the move of both FIL and MIL, it sounds like the right move for both.

@anagram32 I hope your own health is okay and you’re able to keep your own oxygen mask on and say you cannot help.

I just had an actual holiday away - all holiday in the last year has been used for the various needs of others, so going away from home and work was essential. There were still some calls but it was all a lot more manageable without juggling my job and my own home.

DM has one of the remote hive thermostatsic controls which usually sits on the hall table. I say usually because who knows where she moves it to because she doesn’t remember. Last time I looked she’d changed it so the days of the week were in Italian. One day I’m going to buy a safe and hide it in there.

I concur - messing with the heating controls and the boiler both experienced here too.

Stressful because of the gas. Sheltered accommodation had all electric appliances but the boiler was gas and I don’t know how DB didn’t lose his mind or his temper with the calls and finding things changed each visit.

IME fiddling with the central heating controls is one of the first signs of madness (only partly joking ... part is genuine experience with family who've had poor mental health episodes).

Admittedly most CH controls are Byzantine and wildly mysterious.

@Morenicecardigans mum went through a phase of fussing about her heating. We had 1 winter where she had British Gas out 6 or 7 times and every time there was nothing wrong. A few weeks before dad died I arrived and he he was just about to try and bleed the radiators because mum was complaining they weren't warm. At the time he needed help getting out of a chair and had stage 4 heart failure! The house was at tropical temperatures so the thermostat had kicked in. Dad was "oh, of course why didn't I think of that". Mum just looked at me disbelievingly. I was sweating in a t shirt.

@Earlydarkdays so sorry for your loss

We've extended FILs respite care for another two weeks and hopefully that should be enough time to get something sorted nearer to us. BIL is a bit more on board with the plans now and MIL is relieved that FIL is not coming home.

Meanwhile MIL has transferred all her anxiety and worries to whether her heating is working or not. DH is fielding constant calls about the radiators being off. He has explained over and over that they go off when the right temperature is reached but she messes with the thermostat or gets the carers to adjust things. Last week the carers managed to switch the day and night settings so that the heating was on all night and off in the daytime. It's small fry compared to some of the other things that have happened but still exasperating!